Yerington police and school officials have failed in their duty to defend the vulnerable. In failing to protect the teens, the town’s authority figures may have done long-term damage to the town itself.

Two 14-year-old girls, both students at Yerington High School, say they’ve been victims of racist harassment and threats from their classmates for months, both in the school and on social media. One of the classmates making threats was the son of a sheriff's deputy. But the teens said no one in a position of authority was willing to help.

High-profile incidents like this one have a way of defining small towns for years (and in the age of Google and Wikipedia, perhaps longer). That makes it even more significant that law enforcement and school officials failed to do the right thing the first time around. To protect a handful of thoughtless teens from the consequences of their actions, Yerington’s elected officials and school administrators risk painting Yerington’s residents as racist sympathizers.

These incidents might sound like they happened in the deep South — not Nevada. But it wasn’t that long ago that Nevada was called “the Mississippi of the West” for anti-miscegenation laws and the refusal to serve blacks by many prominent hotels and restaurants. It has taken decades of hard work to change the state’s reputation, and Yerington now finds itself back at the starting line for that transformation.

To be clear, no member of the RGJ Editorial Board believes that Yerington as a whole is a racist town. But at every opportunity, those who were in a position to do the right thing for these teens did the exact opposite. Perhaps they decided the best course of action would be to ignore short-term problems involving well-connected teens and hoping things would just go away. Instead, things got much worse.

The true impact of the might not be tangible at first. Perhaps minorities passing through town will decide they’re better off stopping somewhere else for lunch or shopping. Perhaps it’s a Yerington High grad having to navigate awkward questions during a job interview. Or maybe it’s a company looking to move or expand, and passing over Yerington’s bid out of concern for their workforce.

For the sake of Yerington residents, the city’s elected officials, school administrators and law enforcement need to redouble their efforts to do the right thing, address the town’s racial divides, atone for neglecting two of its most vulnerable residents and begin rehabilitating the town’s reputation. It will be a heavy lift, but the future of Yerington is worth the effort.

Editorials reflect the consensus of the Reno Gazette Journal editorial board and are written by one of its members. Ryan Kedzierski is the RGJ’s president. Kelly Ann Scott is the newspaper’s executive editor. Brett McGinness is the RGJ’s engagement editor. Community members include Enrique Carmona, Barbara Courtnay, Lee Herz Dixon and Sam Stynen. The editorial board operates separately from the newsroom. Its opinions do not affect news coverage.

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Bullied Yerington teens Jayla Tolliver and Taylissa Marriott thank the students of Swope Middle School for their letters of support.
Jason Bean